RFID Checks Student Attendance in Arizona

The student newspaper at UW-Madison is running a piece about the use of RFID to check lecture attendance at Northern Arizona University. One poster to an email discussion list suggested that getting around this system would be simple if "all one has to do is walk into a classroom with 10 RFID-enabled cards in their pocket." "The new system will use sensors to detect students' university identification cards when they enter classrooms, according to NAU spokesperson Tom Bauer. The data will be recorded and available for professors to examine. ... [The spokesman] added the sensors, paid for by federal stimulus money, initially would only be installed in large freshmen and sophomore classes with more than 50 students. NAU Student Body President Kathleen Templin said most students seem to be against the new system. She added students have started Facebook groups and petitions against the sensor system. ... One of the most popular Facebook groups ... has more than 1,400 members." What are the odds that the use of tracking RFID will expand over time on that campus?

Comments

Re:Attendence in college?

[joaommp]

I don't know what the fuss is about. That's being done in some universities in Portugal for some years now.

Re:Attendence in college?

[mi]

Then I support Osama bin Laden, but not his mission.

And both of us have to thank the Democratic Party for this wonderfully creative and innovative weaselese, that started it all: "We support the troops, but not their mission."

Re:Stimulus?

[mi]

You'd just blow it on hookers and credit-default swaps.

That's a good argument for 100% taxation, with everything one could need provided by the government for free... That the government's managerial overhead is staggering, is the cost we ought to be prepared to pay.

Decades after the takeover of retirement, the Universal Healthcare is, finally, taken care of — that's a giant wedge, that will soon allow the government to also take over:

• food:
  • you can't be healthy without good nutrition, can you?
  • it is cheaper to feed you than to treat hunger-caused deceases, is not it?
• housing — much the same reasons as above — housing projects for everyone!
• College curriculum — by making the Federal government the sole source of tuition loans, it was placed into position to set rules for both would-be students ("volunteer" or else ...) and the colleges (teach this and that, or else ...) — the colleges will soon be as terrific as the public schools already are

Soon, the ideal of the all-knowing government staffed with benevolent well-meaning bureaucrats (as opposite to the evil private corporate CEOs) will be achieved. We will have no money (the root of all evil), nor need for any, as everything we truly need will be provided by the more equal ones in power. Slaves on plantations had a similar deal — the fools disliked it for some reason...

Re:Attendence in college?

[Attila Dimedici]

Of course there are, there are failing public schools in Arizona.